I live in Solihull, a suburb of Birmingham England. In 1970 I was
working in New York City and took a couple of weeks off (rare thing
for me) to come to Europe to see Britain and visit my brother who was
in the Army in Germany. While in London I had dinner with the brother
of a friend at work, and told him I planned to go back to NYC, work 6
months and then move -- anywhere so long as it wasn't NYC and had
better weather. He suggested London, I got a job within a couple of
days, went to see my brother to wait for the visa, and didn't go back
to the US for about 3 years, leaving my Brooklyn flat behind!

In about 1975 I applied for UK citizenship. Got it, and then got a
letter from the US Embassy saying the Home Office had informed them of
my new citizenship and could I please return my passport. I wrote back
and said Not on your Nellie, I never gave up my US citizenship, I just
took out UK.

Then years later I was listening to the radio and they mentioned that
the pilot of the shuttle Columbia on that launch also had Irish
citizenship. I was on the phone at once to my Dad who worked in Inland
Revenue in DC, who found out that the Cold War Act which had taken
away my citizenship had been found unconstitutional in the Supreme
Court.

The US Embassy was very cooperative, especially once they found my
letter, and I got back my passport and got passports for my two
children.

I'll probably never go back permanently, but that's mainly because of
health insurance! I can go back for chunks of a few weeks and be
covered by travel insurance, but anything longer would cost the earth
to insure.